


The Heretic

by SilverWing15



Series: Dragon Eugenics Hell [2]
Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 15:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20084644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverWing15/pseuds/SilverWing15
Summary: They take his son, his son. They take him. 'Because he is not beautiful' they say.'He is though!' Zephyr longs to scream. 'He is beautiful beyond the comprehension of your tiny minds. He is mine and you can’t take him away!'But they can, and they do. And he lets them because he is one of the Shadows now and here in the dark, beauty is cherished, and ugliness is to be cast away.





	The Heretic

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL NOTES:   
This is my other FR lore, sequel/companion to the one I posted a couple days ago. I'm still working on a few more pieces to go with them and then figuring out my main plot. This one is for the father of my main protag BogDrowned

Light and Shadow rarely get along. Both too different and too alike at the same time. Both cling to their version of pride and look down their muzzles at the accomplishments of the other. In the Light, they don’t bother with anything so pale and fleeting as beauty. In the Light, they are practical and simple. 

Beauty doesn’t matter, use does. 

In the Light, he wasn’t beautiful, he was useful. 

Among the shadows though, he is so very beautiful that sometimes they weep for it. At first, he scorns them and their “beauty”.  _ They aren’t even really beautiful. _ He thinks disdainfully. And it is true. The shadows don’t know  _ true _ beauty, the beauty that is harmony of body and colors and shape. They simply fawn over the brightest, most striking scales and dismiss the rest. 

As much as he mocks their ideals, he benefits from them. In the shadows, they care less about his pedigree and more about his colors, less about his power and more about the sleekness of his body, less about his usefulness and more about his appeal to their eyes. 

None of them seek to ask  _ where _ he’d inherited his beautiful colors. Surely they must believe that one such as him must only come from generations of careful planning, a bloodline so scrutinized that it must be a centuries-long project. 

They do not know that his parents met in secret, for the strange thing called  _ love.  _ Not to bring together beauty and power into the perfect, most  _ useful _ clutch of eggs ever hatched. But to make together the rare thing called  _ happiness. _

They do not know that the Light cast him out the moment they were able. Happy to hand over one such as him to the Shadows, where he could not stain their society any longer. 

So he joins the shadows, he joins them and he is beautiful among them. So beautiful that they weep for it. He takes a mate for duty and for beauty, not for such silly, disgraceful things as  _ love _ and  _ happiness. _ Useless, fleeting things such as that have no place in him. He will not fall to his parent’s sins. 

He takes a mate and soon he guards his own nest. He watches the eggs with pride, listens to the other Shadow dragons croon at them. Promises of beauty and of greatness. He is there the day the first nestling replies. A song of pride and gratitude so beautiful he could weep for it. 

He feels fit to burst with pride. Not only will his child be beautiful, as the Shadows desire, he will be  _ useful _ as the light demands. 

Zephyr does not stand alone on the day of their hatching. It seems that all of the clan has gathered to watch what will no doubt be the birth of the most beautiful hatchlings they have ever seen. 

And they are. Zephyr knows this the moment his first-born daughter pokes her muzzle into the world. She is beautiful, as the Shadows define beauty. Bright and bold with deep purple eyes. His first son is beautiful too. Bright eyed and graceful. 

His second son, the singer that the clan has been so excited to see is the last to hatch. Zephyr watches his final child join the first two and he could weep for the beauty of them all. They are here, at last, after days, weeks of waiting. His  _ children _ . 

For a moment, he understands perfectly the delightful sin his parents fell victim to. He feels  _ love  _ and  _ happiness _ brighter than the sun. He is blinded by joy, by peace deeper than he has ever known. 

He wants to crow with delight, to shower love and treasure upon these children that he has created. He wants to show them to the world, wants to show the world to them. Then the leader of the clan says: “ah.” in a disappointed tone and suddenly, suddenly, he understands his parent’s sin so, so well that he wants to scream for it. 

They take his son,  _ his son.  _ They  _ take him _ . Because he is not  _ beautiful. _ They say. 

_ He is though! _ Zephyr longs to scream.  _ He is beautiful beyond the comprehension of your tiny minds. He is  _ mine _ and you can’t take him away! _ But they can, and they do. And he lets them because he is one of the Shadows now and here in the dark, beauty is cherished, and ugliness is to be cast away. 

“Am I beautiful?” his son asks. 

_ Yes!  _ He screams in his mind.  _ You are more beautiful than the sun itself, more treasured than a thousand gems, more perfect than any god or goddess.  _

He does not see his son for many years. He tells himself that he is content with the children he has remaining. He tells himself that his son is being  _ useful _ elsewhere. 

_ Useful _ . His mind whispers.  _ Does that matter any more than beauty? In the end? Would you hate your son if he wasn’t perfect and whole? If he didn’t have a duty to fulfill? _

He should. He knows he should. Uselessness is a sin far greater than ugliness, surely. 

_ Is it though? Does usefulness matter in the face of love? In the face of happiness? You felt them for a moment, your parents did too. You have inherited their terrible, wonderful sin in this perfect, horrible world. You have to live with it.  _

He has heard that the Arcane dragons value wisdom and knowledge as the Shadows prize beauty and the Light usefulness. He wonders if they would accept him and his terrible, terrible knowledge. 

When word comes of a desperately sick hatchling at the temple, he goes. He goes so quickly that the other dragons hardly have time to process the news. “I am a healer,” he assures them, already half packed, his body trembling. “It is my duty.” 

As he leaves, they congratulate themselves on acquiring such a wonderful clanmate. Not only is he beautiful,  _ so painfully beautiful,  _ but he is kind enough to bother healing an  _ ugly  _ hatchling. 

He doesn’t correct them. Doesn’t say “ _ I have inherited my parent’s terrible selfishness and now you can’t stop me from seeing my son, from loving my son. _ ” 

He visits the temple and he watches the ugly Shadows, that in his old clan would have been  _ useless  _ and thinks about the sin of his parents. 

Then he sees his son, grown and more beautiful than any dragon he has ever seen and he is struck with a crippling wave of  _ regret  _ so deep that he nearly keens. His son watches him with shame in his eyes and turns away. They do not speak, they do not see each other before he is being shuffled away. It is not right for one as beautiful as him to be here among the ugly dragons of the Shadowbinder’s temple. 

Not long after he reaches the clan, word comes that his son, his beautiful, perfect singer-son has fled the temple and likely drowned in the bog that surrounds it. 

His heart shatters and he wails for the unfairness of it all. For the sin of his parents, passed to him and the punishment passed to his son. He screams to the sky, challenges gods and elders alike to strike him down because he is  _ done _ being beautiful and useful. 

He casts aside the clans, scorns their leaders, their ideas of  _ perfection  _ and sets off on his own. He is a healer, not a warrior, so he takes his vengeance in kindness, in healing those that the clans cast away. He takes the blood he is owed in hatchlings smuggled from temples in the night. He will never replace his beautiful singer-son but now he has a hundred children, each perfect and beautiful in their own precious way. 

He teaches them of the strange sin called  _ Love.  _ Educates them in the taboo ways of  _ Happiness.  _ Shows them the forbidden knowledge of  _ Peace _ . 

His parents were sinners and his son was imperfect, but Zephyr is the worst of them all. They called him  _ beautiful _ and  _ useful _ once, but now they call him  _ Heretic. _


End file.
